Vice President Kamala Harris delivers remarks at a church service in Detroit on Sunday. Photo by Getty Images
By Arno Rosenfeld
November 4, 2024
Some Pennsylvania voters have received anonymous text messages that portray Vice President Kamala Harris’s stance on the war in Gaza as duplicitous and phony.
“The Kamala Harris campaign has been running conflicting ads about where she stands on Israel,” one of the messages stated. “It is just what she has to do to be able to win.”
That text message, sent on Sunday from a northern Virginia area code, included a screenshot of a CNN article about how Harris, the Democratic candidate for president, was running ads that “amplify different parts of her message on Gaza and Israel in Michigan and Pennsylvania.”
Harris has tried to maintain a careful balance on the war, saying repeatedly that she supports Israel’s right to defend itself against any threat while describing the death and devastation in Gaza as “heartbreaking.” On Sunday in Michigan, she said she would “do everything in my power to end the war in Gaza, to bring home the hostages, end the suffering in Gaza, ensure Israel is secure and ensure the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, freedom, security and self-determination.”
But political experts believe she is in danger of losing votes because of the war both from the progressive left, where many are outraged by the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s prosecution of the war, and from American Jews who generally support Democrats but see former President Donald Trump as better for Israel than Harris.
The text messages to Pennsylvania voters appeared to target pro-Palestinian progressives, and in some ways echo ads targeting Arab Americans in Michigan that were run by a Republican group.
“I am reaching out to make sure that you know Kamala will always stand with Israel,” the text message sent on Sunday continued. “She can still count on your support, right?”
A second message identified the sender as “Avi,” who said he was asking voters “if they care that Kamala Harris has pledged to support Israel as they wage their war in gaza.”
“This matters to me,” it added. “Does it matter to you? Is there another issue that’s more important to you?” The sender then followed up with a link to an NBC news article about Harris telling pro-Palestinian demonstrators who interrupted an August rally in Michigan, “I am speaking now.”
On Monday morning, “Avi” followed with another message stating: “Election Day is only hours away now and I can’t stop thinking about how this will affect the situation in Gaza. This is my #1 issue on the ballot.”
The messages were received by at least four people who had been registered to vote in Pennsylvania, a state that is critical for both candidates and polls show as deadlocked.
“Kamala people have been texting me all weekend to make sure I know how much she hates Palestinians,” Kumars Salehi, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh, tweeted on Sunday, sharing screenshots of several messages.
Another individual shared screenshots of the messages with the Forward on the condition they not be named, and a third described one in an anonymous online forum of progressives. That user appeared to believe it had come from the Harris campaign.
“I am particularly pissed at ones like this,” they wrote. “It is so loving offensive.”
Michael Straw, a spokesman for a Republican state legislative campaign in Pennsylvania, also appeared to believe the messages were legitimate. In a post on X Sunday night, Straw said that Harris was “straight up admitting to lying to voters.”
The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But the structure of the messages did not match official campaign communications. The tone of the texts was similar to the Michigan ads targeting Arabs in Michigan, with ostensibly positive messages about Harris including that she put “supporters of a free Palestine” “in their place.”
Those ads were paid for by Future Coalition PAC, a Republican group that has received money from Elon Musk, the tech billionaire spending big to elect Trump. The group’s treasurer is Ray Zaborney, a Republican political consultant in Pennsylvania, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Democrats have called the Michigan ads offensive and a “weakly veiled attempt” to damage Harris.
Salehi, the professor, later acknowledged that the texts he received appeared to be “election misinformation.”
“Ladies and gentleman,” he wrote, “they got me.”
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